The results of last April’s assessment tests of third through eighth grade students in St. Lawrence County might not look very good, but state officials are not especially worried.

Those officials say the results should be interpreted more as a measure of the new higher standards than as a failure of students and teachers.

Overall, it appears that about 25 percent of students in grades three through eight reached proficiency in English in St. Lawrence County and 25 percent were proficient in math, compared with about 30 percent overall statewide, as measured by the assessment tests.

The state breaks the results out into four categories of proficiency: Level 4, where the test score indicates a student excels relative to the Common Core Learning Standard; Level 3, where the student is proficient in the subject matter; Level 2, where a student’s test results indicate he or she is below complete proficiency – partially but not sufficiently proficient; and Level 1, where the student is well below proficiency in the course material for the grade level tested

Somewhat more than 1,000 students in each of those grades were tested for proficiency in two areas, English and math.

We have separated the results by school district in St. Lawrence County, which can be seen in an Adobe Acrobat document at this page on our web site.